SKYROCKETING ELECTRIC BILLS  

City Council approved CPS Energy rate hikes in 2008 and 2009. Now CPS is asking council to hike residential rates by 5% every other year for ten years to expand the South Texas Project (STP). In addition, ratepayers will be forced to bear the risk of even higher rates to pay for likely cost overruns.  

More rate hikes will hurt our seniors on fixed income and citizens already struggling to pay high energy bills. This past July, 82-year-old twin sisters on fixed income tragically died in their home from the heat. While they had an air conditioner, they did not to turn it on. 

CPS officials say the multi-billion dollar STP expansion is needed to meet future demand. So where is this demand coming from? According to CPS, it’s mostly because of increased residential usage. However, they may have overlooked the impact of data centers on our local power grid.  

DATA CENTERS 

A data center is a large storage facility for computer data. Located within the facility are thousands of computer servers. There are four large San Antonio data centers either completed or under construction requiring 50-60 megawatts of power each. Just one large data center uses enough power to supply almost 50,000 homes.  

On February 27, 2003 council approved Ordinance 97263. This ordinance was “to help attract new large industrial customers or encourage the growth of existing large industrial customers” by offering a 50% discount on demand charges. 

Offering discounted energy rates and tax incentives, city leaders have been successful at convincing data centers to locate in San Antonio. For one example, City Council granted Microsoft $25.9 million in incentives in January 2007. Notably, council granted exceptions to its own tax abatement policy since Microsoft needed only 75 people to run the center.  

We asked CPS officials about the rate paid by these large industrial customers. They didn’t know but thought it was less than residential users (see htasa.org video). We estimate data centers pay about one-half the rate paid by residential users. 

If current growth continues, data centers alone could consume the power of a STP generator.  

RECOMMENDATION      

City Council should consider ending policies granting data centers tax abatements and low power rates. This would lower demand thereby reducing the need for future increases in generating capacity. Unlike Toyota, data centers create few jobs and require little on no support from other local industries.   

Here is the link to city council phone numbers and email addresses :

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